Cutting up women for fun and profit

[davidn]

While Whitney's been away I've been watching loads of British television, and one of the things I'm catching up on is a TV discussion programme called You Have Been Watching - it's a panel quiz in name only, being the most free-form excuse for an actual quiz I've yet seen in the genre, and is really a vehicle for grumpy old Charlie Brooker and his chums to mock the world's ready supply of particularly awful television. And it's very funny, but there was one section that I felt horribly uncomfortable watching even within the additional frame of satire. I think you'll probably know by now that it takes a lot to prompt me to react like... oh, I don't know - this, for example:

Jesus Christ, this is absolutely fucking hideous

Having been beaten into being a cynical misery-guts from late school age, I've always had great discontent with the idea of purely cosmetic surgery, but my dislike of it started well before I could fully realize how hateful it was - it's used as a gateway to further objectify women, a process to turn people into what they think the world wants them to look like, simply to cut them apart and put them back together in a way that instantly cures them of the ugliness that they perceive themselves to have thanks to the pressure that we put on to them. As said later on in the video, what this televisual atrocity is doing is saying that they're absolutely right - that they shouldn't have any self-esteem for who they are, but that we can save them by drawing up a plan to change them, adding to or slicing out the pieces of their faces and their bodies, reassembling them bit by artificial bit to make them look acceptable and replace their old selves with this universal pre-packaged silicone grimacing standard in a primitive form of roboticization.

Normally at this point I would blame America for being the only society remotely capable of giving this to the world, but this is really on a whole new level - I can't unload the blame on to one country this time, I'm just ashamed that it existed. Besides, the television that is vomited on to me daily here is so appalling that this programme unfortunately didn't come as any great surprise. Listen to the comments from the three panellists as the nightmarish vision goes on, and especially the little interjection at 6:55 - Frankie Boyle is disgusted with it. That's how wrong this is. If that doesn't tell you about the sheer scale of the problem, then nothing will (apart from the blunter conclusion at 8:35).

Actually I've decided it's America's fault after all. Thanks a lot. (It's worth mentioning that even their press was revolted by it - they've got to have some standards.)

Comments

[crassadon.livejournal.com]

All the women who see their new selves cover their face.

Then they look at themselves in awe. And, on the alternative show covering the first show, people laugh at them. Which is really the most disgusting thing, to me. I understand they're making fun of the concept of the show, and how society views beauty, but those are real people that they're making fun of.

Obviously The Swan is horrible, as it modifies these women, and then pits them against one another in competition for an artificial prize, when the prize should be that each woman is happy with their lives. But the woman "who hasn't had a date in ten years" I expect can certainly get a date now. I think it's difficult to argue their lives have not been improved.

As a further comment, I'll say that anyone who gets on TV has to look above average. And that I'm sure everyone on Have You Been Watching had make-up applied, and was given attention by stylists before the show. They are all part of the system of artificial beauty which they are insulting on the show.

[e-to-the-ipi.livejournal.com]

As someone who was actually there at the time, I can assure you that the audience of YHBW wasn't particularly laughing at The Swan. You've got to remember that you're watching a very edited version of events. YHBW is a ahow that really wants at least twice the runtime, and is trying to be three different shows at once, and failing

In fact, during the hour or so of reshoots, there was a particularly chilling bit where Brooker was told, and sounded very surprised to hear "OK, I've been told I've got to insult some of the contestants for legal reasons, apparently."

Draw your own conclusions, but I'd like to assure you that the overall reaction of people in YHBW was shock and disgust, not laughter. And there was a fair amount of discussion of why the show was bad, conceptually, although I'm not sure how much made the edit.

[crassadon.livejournal.com]

I can understand that the audience was not rolling around in laughter at viewing The Swan, and that only tricks of editing could make it appear that way. But that is what people see, even if it's not what actually happened.

I think it's important to note that, regardless of how people actually behave, media tends to make people appear to behave in certain ways. Just as it can encourages certain standards of beauty. It makes speaking out against any facet of society rather difficult.

[davidn]

On the contrary, Whitney said to me recently that the thing about British television was that you didn't have to look attractive to be on it (in the context of watching Ian Hislop and talking about his incredible resemblance to Porky Pig). And there's a world of difference between stylistic make-up and actually seriously having a panel of white coats discussing how best to artificially plasticify someone...

Maybe they think that their lives have improved... but in doing this they become part of the very ugly idea that this is all we value.

[e-to-the-ipi.livejournal.com]

Not to mention Charlie Brooker, who manages to have something approaching multiple franchises, because he's good, despite being rather ugly. Or, for that matter, Armando Ianucci, Frankie Boyle. And this week's Have I Got News For You was hosted by legendary ladies man and bulimic, John Prescott.

[davidn]

John Prescott! My computer's out of action and I'm having to use up precious space on my work laptop if I want to watch anything, but I've got to see that - particularly as he's so much on the receiving end of the programme normally...

[kjorteo]

See, this is why the only reality show I watch (and even then it's a guilty pleasure sort of thing, but it's at least better than all the others!) is The Biggest Loser. Actually, that and The Swan make for an interesting compare/contrast in a roughly similar vague premise of "trying to improve people's lives"--except that one does it by plastic surgery-ing up average women (thank you for linking me to this literally minutes after I beat Trauma Center 2 and sat through Dr. Hoffman's blatant moral of the story speech about how doctors should only be responsible for the burden of saving lives and not for preserving youth/effortless performance enhancement/etc., by the way) and the other is about turning morbidly obese people healthy via exercise, healthier eating habits, and the occasional Dr. Phil-like working through whatever was wrong with them for them to have dug themselves that deep in the first place. With one, you get (as this clip helpfully pointed out) women turned into the same person with different hair color. With the other, you get results like this and this, which can actually conceivably help someone live a healthier and more fulfilling life.

[davidn]

That's received its fair share of mockery at the hands of the above programme as well, but especially given the competition available, I can be talked around to seeing the good in it! But then, I'm not sure if it's possible to take this out of context, for example... (then discussion moves on to a similar but odder format).

I don't watch television so much as it's leaked on to me (you don't think I'd know anything about Tyra Banks by choice, do you?) but I get my imports where I can - if Britain has an abundance of any particular format it's panel shows like these, where a selection from the sort of huge interconnected clique of comedians are gathered up in a room together and just let loose on each other in the vague framework of a quiz (which is usually pretty non-existent - I feel I have to answer a TV Tropes link with another, and Paul Merton's quotation at the top there is perfect). Maybe we're not much good at doing anything ourselves, more commenting on what other people do :) Fortunately it's a format I like a lot.

Well done for getting past Aletheia, by the way! I can't think of a more appropriate time to view this... am I to take it that the Nous trick helped? The best of luck with turbo-Kyriaki :) (Which now I think about it, would take someone's weight off pretty quickly...)

[kytheraen.livejournal.com]

This video contains content from Channel 4, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.

o.O

[stubbleupdate.livejournal.com]

I know. What country do they think I'm in?

Especially since I'm now watching You Have Been Watching on C4's Youtube channel (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wj3EKA0N9I&feature=fvhl&has_verified=1)

[davidn]

I know, it makes a change for me to be the one able to view UK programmes! So apparently they want to control its distrubition inside Britain by keeping it to their own channel, but everywhere else in the world is OK? Or that they don't have the right to block it elsewhere? I've no idea - I've never understood the maze of restrictions on what you can and can't reproduce outside/inside the country of origin.

[diarytypething.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed the programme, in particular because this episode was also a vehicle for Josie Long, who is one of a the few moderately well-known young female comedians, and probably the most openly feminist (although this was the first time I'd ever seen JL wearing obvious make-up; not sure if this was inadvertent, or if it was a pre-emptive strike against being called a scruffy hag). In this context, she and Frankie Boyle were a good combination because they are so different from one another, especially when it turned out that there are some levels of misogyny that shock even Frankie Boyle. The exchange about women plumbers will probably stay with me for a while.

[davidn]

I liked her a lot - I'd never heard of her before but she was a good... placement for talking about this programme in particular.

[diarytypething.livejournal.com]

Knowing your taste for cynical, grumpy comedy, I don't know how much Josie Long's other work would appeal to you, because she's known for being incredibly cheerful. I saw her show at the fringe in 2008, which was called something like "The Universe And All Its Wonders", and featured hand-drawn graphs which were used (and sometimes re-used) to illustrate certain topics, and anecdotes about people who try to set up small amateur museums (at one point using the inspired phrase "like a Guardian wallchart drawn by Hieronymous Bosch"). Maybe her enthusiasm for science will interest you, but her uncynical approach is at a tangent from most other British comedy.

In case you haven't heard, Charlie Brooker also has a radio show at the moment. It's called "So Wrong It's Right", and the general concept is for the panellists to discuss the worst examples of X, Y and Z - usually things like "the stupidest thing I ever wore as a teenager", "ideas for a crap chain restaurant", and so on.

[davidn]

Well, doesn't that make me sound awfully miserable :) But I have to admit it's true. I do like people such as Dave Gorman, though, who your description of Josie Long put me in mind of - the statistics-based Powerpoint-based approach to comedy, and not cynical so much as being able not to take yourself seriously. In any case, either flavour is more palatable than American TV stand-up/sketch comedy, which seems to be primarily based on volume.

However, at the opposite end of the scale of dignity, I must admit that I thought the Mythbusters' banana peel test was hilarious and it brought back nostalgia for Pat Sharpe and company. Clever people doing stupid things... that works as a template, too.

[e-to-the-ipi.livejournal.com]

I was in the audience for the recording of that episode of You Have Been Watching, and started a round of applause which everyone joined in for after Josie Long said some things about why The Swan is so bad.

[Also: Richard Bacon had a lot of very wrong guesses about bad things Jeremy Kyle had done, which they couldn't broadcast.] And I absolutely loved Long's top.

Frankie Boyle's improvisations while we were all bored and they were reshooting the episode were amazingly good - it actually gave me a measure of respect for the guy.

And The Swan is horrible, horrible, horrible.

[davidn]

I didn't know you'd been to any of the recordings! Did the back of your head get on to TV at all? :)

To your comments above, I've been realizing more and more recently just how compressed the final cut of programmes like this are - especially with the rise of 45-minute versions of what used to be half-hour shows (QIXL and Have I Got A Bit More News For You, two equally unwieldy titles for very opposite reasons, for example) - in fact I'm not sure why the half-hour ones are now kept around if there's always a longer follow-up (and tightness for time has changed since the mere four channels that I still remember...!) In this, I never got the impression that people were laughing at the poor souls misguided enough to go through with it - more an uncomfortable sort of laughter at the whole horrific concept that someone actually made it.

I thought Frankie Boyle was needlessly offensive when I first saw him on Mock the Week, but I've grown to really like him now... he's still abrasive sometimes but you have the feeling that... well, that's what he does! And despite all that, you get the impression that he's actually a decent person (especially in the section that was the subject of this post).

[e-to-the-ipi.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately not -- I was in the audience section on banked seating, behind the bit you could see on TV! [If you're desperate for the back of my head, it's prominently visible throughout this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa1HpMjOTyA&feature=related) live recording of Metric, by someone I don't know. [I, obviously, am the one who's still not had a haircut since November '05, day before my 19th birthday.] The chances of this desperation are unlikely.] Recordings are a worthwhile and free thing, if you're living in London, though can be hard to get to. I also went to the radio recording of Charlie Brooker's So Wrong It's Right, which I'm less likely to be visible on. That show suffers even more with format problems, and helped me decide I really, really dislike Lee Mack.

Actually, I was very nearly at the recording for the election episode of hignfy you spoke about previously (http://davidn.livejournal.com/392576.html), though I only discovered this recently. A friend from St Andrews (http://www.ninepointeightone.net/) who's currently moving from Bath to London, while continuing his PhD at the former, against his supervisor's wishes, in one of the of the most ill-advised moves I know, told me this recently. Dave (for it is he) got a phone call at midnight election night, got a phone call from a friend asking if he wanted to come to the following day's hignfy recording. He said "Of course", then discovered it was 8:30. He went to bed at 4:30, got up at 7:30 arrived, and his friend opened the conversation with "Dave, I'm cold and the conservatives have the most seats in the House of Commons." They had four tickets, for the two of them, and were waiting around for two hours (continually being told it would be on in five minutes) while the show was being written, before being let in. Hislop, apparently, was still drunk, and Dave was surprised to hear about a lot that went through. They'd conidered calling me, but didn't know if I would've had time to make it. Given I was wearing a kilt and a T-shirt with a sign saying "I'm British" stuck to it, and had an appointment that morning, it's probably best I didn't go.

The half-hour versions are kept around for the obvious reason! There are primetime half-hour slots which really want to still show the program, and it allows for more flexible repeats.

Frankie Boyle is abrasive for being abrasive's sake, and likes to pretend to be controversial or to have a point by saying things that sound shocking, but really are too stupid to actually have any point or actually offend anyone. Mock the Week's a terrible show for a lot of reasons - a lot of which are encapsulated by the title. It vaguely looks like it's a satirical show on the surface, but is entirely, at root, about laughing at things, as though all of this is something which must be accepted, or can't be explained, and definitely isn't our fault. Or, alternately, is just mean.

Frankie Boyle is at root a decent person, possibly. It's irrelevant to the fact that his comedy's not particularly funny, and mean-hearted, for mean-heartedness sake. He's got a comic talent, but most of the time doesn't use it particularly well.